Dark Reign: The Future of War

The Good
Dark Reign: The Future of War is, well, simply put, a Command & Conquer clone. If you're familiar with those games then you should already know what to expect here. There are two warring factions, the Freedom Force and the Imperium (apparently there is a third one, and it seems to be a fusion between the two which is a stupid idea) and the storyline revolves around a civilization that has been destroyed and is now traveling back in time to alter the course of a war in their favor or something like that.

The most notable aspect of the game is the height difference system. To specify, Dark Reign was among the first RTS games to try to incorporate realistic terrain. Units' fields of view will be different depending on their location, for example standing on a high hill allows for a larger field of view than elsewhere, and units will move slower or faster depending on the terrain, among other things.

Most of the gameplay mechanics are similar to Command & Conquer or Starcraft, but there are some differences. In fact, I'd say the game feels like a mixture between the two. You get a sidebar which lists all units and buildings that can be bought, but unlike the Construction Yard system of C&C, you get workers to build stuff for you. These workers also disappear once they constructed the building (I assume they operate it!) but you may use them again if you sell said building. There are two types of resources, clean water (which apparently in this post-apocalyptic world has become a luxury) and some sort of green thing that is used to increase and stabilize the energy of power plants, otherwise you'd go in Low Power just like in C&C. Like in Starcraft, certain buildings can be upgraded to be able to produce different types of constructions and units.

The combat itself is fairly close to Command & Conquer, and it appears to at least partly inherit the "weakness" system, which is a good thing. To summarize, certain types of units are more effective against other types, for example rifle soldiers are not very strong against vehicles and buildings but are good against infantry, and rocket soldiers are effective against buildings and vehicles but weak against infantry. Main battle tanks are excellent against light vehicles but mediocre against infantry and decent against buildings. I could go on, but I think you get the picture. Each faction has different units but the difference in strategies isn't huge. Generally, the Freedom Force have faster/cheaper units and the Imperium have expensive/slower but tougher units (rings a bell?). Some air units can travel on water, and there's flying units as well.

The campaign is a little bit different from other RTS campaigns. Instead of just having a different campaign for each faction, there is only one campaign, but each mission can be played as either side. In theory this is a good idea because it's fun to see how you can be both the attackers or the defenders in one particular mission, but in practice if you choose to play all missions using each side, you are effectively replaying the same mission. Thankfully the missions are varied enough, from the destroy-everything-that-moves-and-that-doesn't type from hostage rescue or city defense missions, as well as some pseudo-stealth missions. It's nothing we've never seen before in a game like this, but it's still well done.

In general the gameplay is very fast paced and exciting, structures and units do not really take a long time to build (especially if you've got various factories) and resource collection is very easy to do, so you'll be engaging in battle with the enemy in about two minutes since a match's start. As for the AI, to be honest, I found it to be superior to other RTS games' AI. The campaign was sometimes a real challenge and if not for the overpowered heavy turrets I'm not sure I could've won some of the missions. This does add tons of replay value as you master each mission, and I've definitely had a lot of fun with the campaign. AI in Skirmish is equally challenging (sometimes too much so) and is varied enough with its attacks. Dark Reign isn't an easy game, and I'm sure RTS veterans will approve of this.

The graphics in Dark Reign are pretty good, being colorful and varied enough, and they just have that oldschool charm to it that you just don't see anymore these days. All units are well animated, and I like how infantry units aren't as big as a tank. The sound is equally good, although a few of the sounds are a bit loud and repetitive (they could perhaps have used more than one sound for certain weapons). The music is typical atmospheric sci-fi music, not awesome but still catchy.

The game has a map editor (which I haven't tried) and a huge amount of skirmish maps and you can get even more from the internet. Naturally the game also supports online play, so you're bound to play this for quite some time.

The Bad
Dark Reign has a lot going for it but there are some problems, and I'm not sure if I should blame the developers or the technology for them.

The first problem is simple: the game tries to implement a height system for the terrain but since the game is entirely 2D it is generally hard to determine which terrain type is higher, or what actually are cliffs. Maybe I could figure it out if payed a little more attention but due to how fast paced the game is I really don't have the time to understand the terrain of each level. For this reason the height gimmick ends up being a confusing mess that mostly just gets in the way of scouting.

Certain types of terrain can only be crossed by certain units. For example, water can be traversed by hover units but not by normal infantry and tanks - that makes sense. But for example infantry is the only type of unit that can "climb" (if you can call it that) cliffs. In one campaign mission there are various enemy structures and units located in higher areas and it is very annoying to take them out using just infantry (I'm still not sure how I did it to be honest).

The other problem has to do with some of the unit design decisions. I'll say right off the bat that the heavy turrets are entirely too strong, being able to wipe out a battalion of tanks in a matter of seconds. The other problem is the way artillery was implemented: instead of a powerful-yet-slow long-range unit, the artillery is extremely weak but has twice the range of any artillery unit in other RTS games. The only way to bring down a heavy turret for example is to construct about 10 artilleries and then you might hope to bring it down. The thing is that you can shoot at them from your base even if the turret is located very far away (provided the area is being scouted), which is just dumb in my opinion. Even worse, when artilleries show up in the campaign you'll just end up being bombarded from everywhere and it's very hard to determine where the projectiles are coming from.

The Bottom Line
Overall, despite its flaws, I've had a lot of fun with Dark Reign and I can see why it's generally considered to be a classic RTS. If you can look past the annoyances you will find a fast, exciting strategy game that will remind you why you fell in love with the genre in the first place (well if you're a RTS fan that is). It might not have aged as well as other games in the genre, but you can't take the fun out of a good game. Highly recommended for RTS fans.